Wrestling Insider: Cougars taking ‘baby steps’ under new coach

KR wrestlers continue to improve under former state champ Doggett.

New Kenton Ridge head wrestling coach Cameron Doggett (right) – a Graham High School graduate and former state champ – and his assistant coach, Mike Ryan, encourage a wrestler during a match last month. Staff Photo by Barbara J. Perenic

Barbara Perenic New Kenton Ridge head wrestling coach Cameron Doggett (right) – a Graham High School graduate and former state champ – and his assistant coach, Mike Ryan, encourage a wrestler during a match last month. Staff Photo by Barbara J. Perenic

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By Kermit Rowe, Staff Writer 10:38 PM Wednesday, February 8, 2012

SPRINGFIELD — To be a champion, you have to train like a champion.

That’s the only way former Graham state wrestling champion Cameron Doggett knows how to do it. In turn, that’s the only way he knows how to teach it as a first-year head coach at Kenton Ridge High School.

Call it “The Graham Model” or whatever you want: Doggett knows it works. He’s lived it. He’s coached it four season as Graham’s middle school coach. And he means to prove to his Cougars that it works.

That means some adjustments on the part of the wrestlers.

“To get them going extremely hard, especially when they are not used to it, that takes time,” said Doggett. “It’s not going to happen overnight to fully implement what we want to do. We have taken a bunch of baby steps.

“I feel we’re doing better than I expected us to be. Right now I’m very, very happy with where we’re at.”

The Cougars have placed third or higher in every tournament they’ve entered this season with the exception of two: The Greater Miami Valley Wrestling Association Holiday Tournament, where they were 14th out of 53 schools — but third in the small schools division — and at a recent tourney in Delaware.

“As the season has progressed, I’ve tried to be more demanding,” said Doggett. “And I give the wrestlers a lot of credit — everything I’ve thrown at them, they’ve not complained and just went along and did it.”

And that’s developing in the Cougars something that is integral — mental toughness.

“We’re starting to get there,” Doggett said. “Mental toughness is the hardest thing for a high school kid to get. A few of our kids have it and I have a few who aren’t quite there, but are gaining. I wish I could figure out how to teach that. It just comes down to the kid believing in himself more.”

Doggett enlisted some “Graham help” when he took the KR job, luring longtime Graham assistant coach and former Shawnee head coach Mike Ryan to the Cougars program as his assistant.

“Once Cameron got the job, and talked to me, he asked me to come along,” said Ryan. “He was also my youngest son’s junior high coach (at Graham Middle School), so I got to see how he related to and motivated his kids.

“I had the opportunity to work with someone who I know we think a like about work ethics and fundamentals, so I took it. I thought the attitude he had would give him a good chance to really succeed at Kenton Ridge.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0364.

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